{"id":17634,"date":"2013-02-12T12:21:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T17:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=17634"},"modified":"2013-02-12T12:23:03","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T17:23:03","slug":"please-suggest-mardi-gras-themed-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/please-suggest-mardi-gras-themed-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Suggest Mardi Gras-Themed Songs That Do Not Devolve Into Voodoo-Jumbalaya Nonsense"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sASakvKFaxc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>\n<p>In honor of <strong>Mardi Gras<\/strong>, may I make a slightly ungracious\u00a0request?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As I do most every weekend, I was listening to Nick Spitzer&#8217;s <em>American Routes<\/em> on my local public radio affiliate (WHYY-FM). I love that show. As I&#8217;ve mentioned before, Spitzer is one of my favorite music-show hosts. He can turn me onto just about any American music style short of that Louisiana style of accordion music that quickly grates on my nerves. (Who&#8217;s the hero of that scene, Clifton Chenier?)<\/p>\n<p>Being based in Louisiana and a fan of that state&#8217;s great music traditions, not a week goes by that Spitzer doesn&#8217;t surprise me with a good song by a band I&#8217;d rejected long ago in my angry youth. Take\u00a0<strong>The Neville Brothers<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>The Meters<\/strong>. I&#8217;m not averse to all music from the state of Louisiana by any means, but the stuff I came of age associating with drunken white party boys trying to get their groove on in college (same as my initial beef with Bob Marley&#8217;s music, which I&#8217;ve learned to love, in some cases) did nothing for me. Spitzer can set up a Meters song, however, and almost always turn me on. (Let me know, Nick, if you are not receiving the Turn-On points due you.)<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend Spitzer played, appropriately, a <a title=\"American Routes Mardi Gras Show\" href=\"http:\/\/americanroutes.wwno.org\/archive\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mardi Gras-themed show<\/a>. I stopped partying long before I ever had the chance to get caught up on the bacchanalia of the holiday. When I did party, it was Mardi Gras every day, if I could manage it. This explains why my party needed to come to a quick and decisive close. I never felt a great need to cut loose in my late teens and early 20s: I was untethered. These days, I am who I am. As a result, I feel I&#8217;m at a serious disadvantage in ever enjoying the themes of Mardi Gras music.<\/p>\n<p>Songs about looking forward to dancing and drinking spur little reaction in me. I love to eat, but I&#8217;ve also been uninhibited about that on a regular basis. I&#8217;ll have a bowl of jumbalaya, but it&#8217;s time I pass on seconds. All those songs about &#8220;Iko Iko&#8221; and &#8220;Giacomo&#8221; (never spelled like that, though, is it?) do nothing for me. Then there are the voodoo-themed songs. He played some song that started off incredibly strong, with a killer bass, drum, and horn intro that made me feel like dancing. Then the vocals took a turn into some kind of voodoo chant about the Zulu King that took me out of the moment. The song was &#8220;(Talkin&#8217; About the) Zulu King,&#8221;\u00a0by James &amp; Troy Andrews with Donald Harrison Jr. &amp; Big Chief Monk Boudreaux. It&#8217;s really great, if you can overlook the lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>Man, I don&#8217;t believe in voodoo, the devil, and anything like that. The only mystical stuff I fall for involves super-positive and cosmic hippie visions like &#8220;San Franciscan Nights.&#8221; I love the rhythms of New Orleans music and how they&#8217;ve been dispersed into rock &#8216;n roll, but the party and voodoo themes of Mardi Gras music bum me out. Can anyone suggest a Mardi Gras-themed song that won&#8217;t make me feel like I&#8217;m surrounded by people who could just as easily be digging Jimmy Buffet albums? Can anyone free my ass from the chains of my way-too-focused mind?<\/p>\n<p><em>I look forward to your healing mojo powers<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In honor of Mardi Gras, may I make a slightly ungracious\u00a0request?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[133,784],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}